Said Mattingly: "I don't want to badmouth the Angels at all. Mr. (Angels owner Arte) Moreno has done a great job down there in Anaheim, and (Angels manager) Mike (Scioscia) does a great job. But we're the Dodgers, and that isn't going to change."

But that isn't the real nugget in the story. No, the gold comes late in the piece, when Jackson asks Matt Kemp to comment on the Angels' shucky-darn-cute rally monkey tradition (emphasis mine):

Mattingly later said that as a visiting manager, he actually likes the Angels' rally-monkey promotion because it usually comes out only when the Angels are trailing.

"(The monkey) is funny," Mattingly said. "I try to tell guys they should like the rally monkey because when the rally monkey comes out, it means you have the lead. You're not behind. So I like when he comes out."

It was on the subject of the monkey that Kemp went against Mattingly.

"I don't like the rally monkey," Kemp said. "I'm scared of the rally monkey. Out in the outfield, the monkey just pops up on the screen, and that can be scary. The rally monkey has gotten us sometimes. Hopefully, it won't happen this year."

I didn't think Matt Kemp was scared of anything. But come to think of it, having a giant hyperactive primate jumping around behind him must be pretty frightening. Maybe he's got a point.